Entertainment

The Oscars and the Death of the Water Cooler

If advertisers have their way, a lot of the Oscar buzz this year will have nothing to do with the best picture nominees.

As with the Super Bowl, advertisers during the second-biggest advertising night of the year (the Academy Awards are known in the industry as the "Super Bowl for Women,") are trying to inject themselves into social media conversations happening during the event.

But while the Super Bowl was all about the ads, this time the TV spots are something of a sideshow. The ads themselves often serve as plugs for a Facebook page or other online activity, which marketers expect viewers to engage in during the event.

That's a stark difference from the Super Bowl. There wasn't a lot of live-event tie-in activity at this year's big game, probably because the action of a football game moves too fast for Twitter commentary. The Oscars are a different story, though.

"You tune in 15 minutes before the game starts, you watch the preamble then everyone tunes out," says Hayes Roth, chief marketing officer of Landor Associates, of the Super Bowl. By contrast, "this is all about the run-up," he says. "It's a different kind of event that's interactive in itself. There's anticipation about who's going to win and there are a lot of winners. It's a much more convivial atmosphere."

Real-Time Marketing

Hence the live coverage blitz this time around. SprintNextel, for instance, is sponsoring People.com's red carpet coverage, while Gilt Groupe has snagged Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian to tweet about the show on the luxe retailer's behalf. Not to be outdone, Trident Vitality gum will sponsor a feature on PerezHilton.com that aggregates Twitter posts from readers and celebrities. Mercedes, meanwhile, is partnering with GetGlue to sponsor stickers given out by the TV social networking app during the show.

It's no wonder marketers are keen to exploit the possibilities of the Oscars in real time. The reality is you just can't get millions of people together very often at one time to focus on anything. Viewers of canned programming such as sitcoms or dramas can skip ads in a DVR, but with a live broadcast, they have no choice but to sit through the ads or at least try to amuse themselves during commercial breaks.

"This is a big event, the last of the water-cooler shows," says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research at Horizon Media, who added that social media has given awards shows such as the Oscars a huge boost. In 2008, the Oscars drew about 32 million viewers. Last year, 41.7 million people tuned in. Likewise, the Grammys had 19 million viewers in 2009 vs. 26.5 million during 2011's telecast. "Two years ago, these awards shows had really bottomed out in terms of viewing," he says. "But there's a huge upswing in ratings that can only be attributed to social media."

But social media doesn't just amplify the ratings. It also condenses the discussion time about the event, putting Adgate's analogy in a new light. "We're witnessing the death of the water cooler," says Josh Rose, EVP and digital creative director for ad agency Deutsch LA. "Now we're simultaneously witnessing and talking about these events. If you're not part of that discussion, you're too late the next day."

Nevertheless, David Rosenberg, director of emerging media for ad agency JWT in New York, says that the upside for brands in events like the Oscars is huge. "When done properly, brands get a lift by the immediate impressions that are generated on air as well as by being attached to the content and stories people share online—perhaps from two-screen viewing. The earned media potential here is great."

"DVD Extras"

But how exactly should a marketer tie-in with a live event over social media? Rose likens the current approach by many to DVD extras — interviews and behind-the-scenes events on a DVD that are related to the main feature, but not a part of it. Thus, the craze for red carpet commentary, which mimics the DVD commentaries that are standard for many movies on video these days.

An alternative approach is to use the ads themselves as a jumping-off point for discussion. This is the tack favored by J.C. Penney, which will run seven TV spots during the show and two during the pre-show. The brand is buttressing that presence with local market buys that feature "Because I'm Addicted" fashion blogger Geri Hirsch, who will display her J.C. Penney styles live on the brand's Facebook page. That page will also offer a "Shop like a Celebrity" sweepstakes dangling a trip to Manhattan.

Best Buy, meanwhile, will center its online push around its ad. The retailer is using its Facebook page to host a charity auction for clothes worn by Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber in an ad that runs during the telecast. (The ad is the same as the one that ran during the Super Bowl except for it has a different ending, which was chosen by fans on Best Buy's website.)

Whether consumers will welcome such brands into the discussion remains to be seen. For his part, Rose thinks that, given the fragmentation of media, marketers will have no choice but to try to find ways to tie in to all kinds of events, whether they're the Oscars, the Olympics or even — far trickier — the uprising in Egypt, just so they can stay part of the ongoing social media discussion. "People rally around a 24-hour news cycle," he says. "There are opportunities for brands to quickly respond in any situation."

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